Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Casablanca
- Who's watched: M & G (finally)
- Mentions: None
- Commentary: The truth is, if this movie hadn't come bundled with four others we wanted, we wouldn't own it. I know, stating this is probably blasphemy. I had never seen the movie all the way through until maybe a month ago. Although, when I read the name of the movie to my mother off the cable schedule, she expresses interest in it and often watches it, it's not one either of us yearns toward and, often as not, when it's on the cable schedule, in this house, Animal Planet trumps it.
When we viewed this film the last (aforementioned) time, I remember Sidney Pollack, who introduced it as one of TCM's Essentials, slipped into a blur of words rhapsodizing Ingrid Bergman and her performance in this movie, nodding, as well, to his life long crush on Ms. Bergman. Anyway, from what he said I thought, "Oh, okay, well I'll watch the whooole thiiing and, if what he says about Ingrid Bergman's performance is true, I should really enjoy this. At the end of the movie I was thinking, well, I think men go crazy when they see Bergman on the screen and think her a better actor than she was. She was very good, obviously stellar, but not transcendental, like, say Streep or Kingsley.
I'll probably be lynched by the Klassic Movie Klan before morning.
Update 2/6/18: Since my mother's death almost a decade ago, I continued my contentious relationship with this movie. I've checked it out of the library (thank goodness I donated my copy to it) at least once every two years and struggled through it yet again. I enjoy Claude Rains in this movie. I've come to enjoy the machinations of the plight of people stuck in Casablanca. But, I'm sorry, the love story does absolutely nothing for me. Sometimes, immediately after watching it, I think the movie would have been a whole lot better, at least for my viewing, if the love story had been dumped. I'm hoping, at this point, that I don't feel I have to watch it again.
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Humphrey Bogart Rick Blaine Ingrid Bergman Ilsa Lund Paul Henreid Victor Laszlo Claude Rains Capt. Louis Renault Conrad Veidt Mjr. Heinrich Strasser Sydney Greenstreet Signor Ferrari Peter Lorre Signor Ugarte Dooley Wilson Sam
Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
Release Date: 1942
Directed by Michael Curtiz.
Labels: claude-rains, dramaB, ingrid-bergman, mystery2
